Andrea Bocelli’s Tuscan wines go on sale in the US at $20 a bottle

 cuisine, music, opera  2 Responses »
May 102012
 

Around ’s fam­ily home in , in the province of Pisa, Andrea and his brother Alberto, who is more dir­ectly involved, are pur­su­ing work to improve the wines and the fam­ily tra­di­tion. A work done, as Andrea says, in hon­our of the memory of their father, Aless­andro, who in his time pas­sion­ately cul­tiv­ated the vines planted by his grand­father in the Tuscan region bor­der­ing that of Chianti. The wine, mainly san­giovese red, is called Le Terre di Sandro.

The grounds cover a sur­face area of around 120 hec­tares, of which a small part is wooded. Cer­eals are grown in rota­tion with fod­der and, most import­antly, the vines as well as olives. In 2000 the broth­ers planned the devel­op­ment of the wine sector.

Says Bocelli:

My brother and I have begun to try to make a ser­i­ous wine, and the first res­ults are extremely encour­aging. We do it in memory of babbo, who had con­tin­ued the work of my grand­par­ents and who had so much pas­sion. And I like wine, when it’s good. Wine is a uni­ver­sal rem­edy when we’re tired, and full of prob­lems to solve. I call them bottles of happiness.

When I return home from my long work trips away, a bottle of wine from my land, placed there, in the centre of the table, gives almost unpar­alleled joy. It takes me back in time, brings back the memory of my father, his strong, calm voice, prais­ing the fruit of his vine­yard and his work, savouring that nec­tar with almost reli­gious respect and fervour. What I would pay for him to be able to appre­ci­ate the res­ults achieved over these past few years. I’m cer­tain he would be immensely proud. I will always find peace and serenity mongst the rows of vines, at that table where I drank our wine in the com­pany of my father so many times, with Alberto, my brother, my mother and all those dear to me.

Bocelli Fam­ily Wines has expan­ded their pro­duc­tion to intro­duce Bocelli Pro­secco and Bocelli San­giovese to the US where it’s now avail­able in states like New York, Texas, Illinois, Wash­ing­ton and Ore­gon. Bottles sell for around $20.

Bocelli is not the first celebrity to put his name on a wine bottle. Oth­ers who have entered the wine­mak­ing busi­ness include Drew Bar­ry­more, , Fran­cis Ford Cop­pola, and even AC/DC. Brad Pitt and ’s home in the South of France, Château Miraval, also comes with a winery that pro­duces white, red and rosé wines!

Juan Diego Florez talks about his fairy-tale wedding, his fans, and being lazy

 interview, opera  1 Response »
May 062012
 


On the eve of Juan Diego Florez’s con­cert, The Sunday Times sent a journ­al­ist to his home in Pesaro. This beau­ti­ful town on Italy’s east coast — home to the Rossini Opera Fest­ival, and where Pav­arotti had his much-filmed villa — is where Florez has made his base with his wife and baby although, inev­it­ably, he is often away.

As the concert’s pro­du­cers coughed up the trip expenses, Tanya Gold’s piece is, not surprisingly, reverential. She enthuses about Florez’s “gleam­ing teeth, wide eyes and naughty curls. He is so ­hand­some, whole­some and ridicu­lously joy­ful, I ­won­der if he is fol­lowed around by an orches­tra of car­toon rab­bits.” Or maybe she really is besot­ted by the tenor’s looks.

The easy, vibrant top of his voice has made Florez a fix­ture in all the import­ant opera houses in the world. Gold recounts his appear­ance in Donizetti’s La Fille du régi­ment at ’s in 2007 when, after bring­ing down the house with Ah!… con­tinue reading

Magda Olivero at 102: The problem is that there are many singing teachers, but few of any worth

 opera  2 Responses »
Apr 092012
 

 

Just after ’s , (on March 25), the went to visit her. This remark­able woman still has a lot to say. While many of her opin­ions are maybe inev­it­able for someone of such an age (the Mil­anese are no longer well-mannered; mod­ern opera pro­duc­tions have gone down­hill; there are no out­stand­ing sing­ers nowadays), many of her com­ments con­tain an ele­ment of truth, and are not just the rant­ings of a fuddy-duddy.

Here is Olivero on listen­ing to young singers:

So far nobody has left me speech­less. They sing, but without tech­nique. The prob­lem is that there are many singing teach­ers, but few of any worth. They don’t teach that to sing you must breath and sup­port the voice: a won­der­ful rule that isn’t taught. The found­a­tions are not firmly in place when the singer already starts con­front­ing opera arias. We used to spend years doing vocal exercises.

… con­tinue reading

Daniela Barcellona at La Scala: big girls can be sexy too!

 music, opera  No Responses »
Apr 042012
 


To those who have wit­nessed only on the oper­atic stage, it may come as a sur­prise to learn that she is a con­vin­cing and eleg­ant artist on the recital plat­form. All images of strid­ing mezzo sol­diers are thrown aside when she enters dressed with under­stated chic: meas­ured and con­trolled, as was her .

On Monday night at Milan’s La Scala she conquered platea and log­gione alike with her radi­ant smile, well-judged char­ac­ter­iz­a­tions, and flaw­less music­al­ity. Although the voice shows signs of tired­ness in some ranges, her tech­nique is spot on and allows her to play as she likes with dynam­ics and col­oratura. It was unusual to hear the col­our of the voice main­tained through­out Manuel de Falla’s Six Span­ish Pop­u­lar Songs without push­ing out the lower notes, and her high notes are con­fid­ent and powerful.

Although Di tanti pal­piti from Rossini’s Tan­credi was an clear choice for Bar­cel­lona, she per­formed Tosti’s Quat­tro can­zoni di Amaranta with cap­tiv­at­ing style.… con­tinue reading

Glyndebourne hosts the world première of a major new production by learning disabled artists

 opera  2 Responses »
Apr 042012
 


has hos­ted the world première of a major new pro­duc­tion con­ceived and per­formed by artists with .

Gold Run was inspired by the story of the return of learn­ing dis­abled ath­letes to the Olympics at Lon­don 2012. A ban had been in place since 2000 after the dis­cov­ery that the Span­ish bas­ket­ball team were field­ing non learn­ing dis­abled players.

The well-received première was the cul­min­a­tion of a two year col­lab­or­at­ive pro­ject between Glyn­de­bourne , dis­ab­il­ity arts organ­isa­tion Carou­sel and Pal­lant House Gal­lery, the home of Mod­ern Art in the South.  The cast was involved in all stages of the cre­at­ive pro­cess and developed a com­pel­ling, multi-genre per­form­ance fea­tur­ing a mix of film, and visual art.

David Pick­ard, Gen­eral Dir­ector of Glyn­de­bourne said:

The Gold Run pro­ject was the first of its kind for the Glyn­de­bourne Edu­ca­tion depart­ment which runs a diverse and var­ied year round pro­gramme of learn­ing projects.

… con­tinue reading

Dubai will build its opera house and museum despite economic problems

 architecture, opera  1 Response »
Mar 232012
 


will build its and mod­ern art museum as planned, the gov­ern­ment has announced.

The com­plex is to be built near Burj Khal­ifa, the world’s tallest tower. Archi­tec­tural ele­ments are now being final­ised and work will begin soon, said AFP.

Dubai is heav­ily in debt hav­ing bor­rowed to fin­ance its rapid eco­nomic growth. This stopped abruptly when inter­na­tional fin­ance dried up. Dubai’s total debt is estim­ated at more than 100 bil­lion dollars.

In 2008, Dubai announced plans to build a series of cul­tural pro­jects, such as lib­rar­ies, theatres and museums and an opera house, but the pro­jects never saw the light. Neighbouring Abu Dhabi, mean­while, is build­ing a huge cul­tural com­plex on Saadiyat Island, which will host branches of the Gug­gen­heim, the Louvre and Zayed National Museum.

The Gulf region has been the site of a cul­tural boom over the past few years with the Ara­bian Peninsula’s only opera house, The Royal Opera House of Oman, open­ing last Octo­ber.… con­tinue reading

Cecilia Bartoli takes a ship to join Valery Gergiev in St Petersburg

 conference, music, opera, video  1 Response »
Mar 212012
 

Yes­ter­day, before ’s highly anti­cip­ated con­cert at the  in St Peter­burg tomor­row even­ing, she gave a press con­fer­ence along­side who will con­duct the pro­gramme of Moz­art and Rossini arias.

Bartoli’s famed avoid­ance of fly­ing (air-conditioning bad for the voice and jet-lag bad for the body) sur­prised many:

Well, I’ve just arrived — and in a very pecu­liar way because I decided to take a ship. And I wanted to see the sea with all the ice… This is some­thing for a Roman. I mean, we never have snow in Rome (well, last winter yes — for the first time in fifty years prob­ably). And then, to come here: the ship cross­ing and cut­ting the ice. You know, this is a strong feel­ing. This is some­thing very, very special.”

The voy­age from Lübeck in Ger­many to took about three days.

Ger­giev expressed hope of future col­lab­or­a­tions with Bar­toli, sug­gest­ing the the “Rus­sian” operas of the 18th Cen­tury might be an obvi­ous choice.… con­tinue reading

Sydney Opera House to be renamed La Stupenda in honour of Joan Sutherland

 opera  1 Response »
Mar 162012
 

 

The opera theatre at the will be renamed in hon­our of the late Dame Joan Suth­er­land, ful­filling an elec­tion prom­ise by the Premier, , said The Sydney Morn­ing Her­ald.

O’Farrell met rep­res­ent­at­ives of and the in the theatre yes­ter­day to announce the decision, which fol­lows dis­cus­sions with Dame Joan’s hus­band, the pian­ist and con­ductor Richard Bonynge, and the rest of her family.

The Premier noted that con­struc­tion of the Opera House had ”almost coin­cided” with the decision of Dame Joan and Mr Bonynge to return to Aus­tralia in 1965 at the height of her inter­na­tional fame as a soprano.

I think what’s fant­astic about this woman, who was just such a mag­ni­fi­cent singer, was that it just demon­strates that Aus­trali­ans can do any­thing on the world stage,’

he said.

Sup­port for renam­ing the opera theatre emerged from the memorial ser­vice at the Opera House after her death in Octo­ber 2010. Bonynge said in a statement,

The fam­ily are delighted and feel very hon­oured at the renam­ing in hon­our of Dame Joan.

… con­tinue reading

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